


Like Angels & Devils

by we_are_conjoined



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Marcus is mysterious and feels guilty, Marcus the exorcist, Minor Injuries, Tomas is sad and bisexual, Tomas loves Marcus, Tomas only dates Jessica for like a second, Tomas the bartender, if we're talking the existence of demons and Marcus's dark past, marcus loves tomas, pretty canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 04:57:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15089486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/we_are_conjoined/pseuds/we_are_conjoined
Summary: Tomas never particularly wanted to fall in love - especially not with a blue-eyed man who comes and goes as he pleases, and holds far too many secrets in his heart.(Or, Tomas is an angsty bartender and Marcus is an exorcist who keeps coming back for more).





	Like Angels & Devils

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah this half-assed AU is kind of super random and literally no one asked for it but a certain scene in season 1 sparked my writer's brain and so I came up with this mess (Hint - Marcus breaks into Tomas's apartment and teases him about liking Nicholas Cage). I titled this based off an Ariana Grande song called Why Try and it honestly just fits so well with the mood I tried to create within this fic and their relationship too so like go listen to the song first if you like!

Tomas’s back aches – there’s nothing he dislikes more than breaking up bar fights, and at Heaven In a Bottle, brawls are a weekly kind of thing.

He wonders briefly if he’s getting old, chuckles, and unlocks the door to his apartment. That’s when he sees Marcus curled into himself on the floor of the dark living room, illuminated only by a splinter of light from open door behind Tomas’s back.

Marcus’s face is shattered by fresh bruises already blooming shades of purple and green, and he grips his left ribcage with a hand as pale as a lily petal. Blood bursts from between his fingertips.

Tomas drops his bag in the hallway, unable to breathe, unable to think, because Marcus Keane is _there_ and he’s alive, but so close to not, and Tomas is so scared that this might be just another twisted dream tearing open old wounds upon his heart.

“Marcus,” he says, and it’s a sigh as Tomas kneels by Marcus’s side, hands cupping those bruised cheeks. Panic and excitement make his heart flutter in equal measure.

“Darling,” coughs Marcus. The sweet, familiar call is drowned in blood and racking gasps that echo painfully in Tomas’s gut.

“We need to get you to a hospital, now,” Tomas says. He tries to focus, tries to soothe the voices screaming _Marcus, Marcus_ in his mind. There will be so much time for that later, for questions and concerns and hopefully, at last, an answer or two – but for now, Marcus is hurt beyond what a simple bartender can handle.

Marcus grips Tomas’s arm and coughs violently again. It sounds like a “No!” this time, all vehemence and bite.

Tomas shakes his head and moves to stand, but the hand twisted in his jacket sleeve makes no move to release, and Tomas can’t push it away for fear of hurting Marcus’s wounds unseen. Knowing him, there are always wounds unseen.

“ _Please_ ,” Marcus murmurs. It’s so faint, and Tomas feels a rush of lightheaded fear. The idea of losing Marcus because of Tomas’s inexperienced treatment is all-consuming and grips his throat like a hand of broken glass, yet he knows that, if he does take him to the hospital, Marcus will surely be angry. Beyond angry, even – it would be a betrayal beyond withstanding for him.

Either way, Marcus would be gone, but in only one scenario would he despise Tomas, and that made the choice all too obvious. The question was, would Tomas be able to live with his own selfishness?

After a drawn-out pause wherein the only sound is Marcus’s heavy panting, Tomas finally, gently, peels Marcus’s fingers from his sleeve and goes to retrieve his first-aid kit.

 

 

 

“Won’t you have a drink with me, bartender?”

Those were the first words Marcus Keane had ever uttered in Tomas’s direction – a quick bite, a promise of nothing good to come.

Tomas remembers everything from that night. He was working the late shift, his least favorite – the bar was always empty then, besides a few dedicated alcoholics, who seemed to think Tomas’s sole purpose was to listen to their tales of woe – and Marcus had shown up, a new customer at a time of night when there were never new customers.

Tomas had immediately been intrigued, every sense standing on end at the sight of such a being. The man’s blue eyes were heavy with secrets and he smelled like desert sand and cedar. His slender shoulders hunched, the lean muscle of his arms straining against his peeling leather jacket. Every inch of him told a story – the way his creased hands stroked the wood of the bar counter, how they clutched his glasses of whiskey. The line of his throat when he tipped his head back to down the last dregs of his drink.

Marcus was a sight to behold, and behold him Tomas did.

He didn’t realize Marcus was beholding back until he asked to share a drink. Tomas, all thoughts of his future priesthood expiring at once, readily agreed. One glass swirled into three, and then six. As customers stumbled out into the night, Tomas and Marcus’s chairs slid closer. Hands ran through jet black locks and over shorn blond scalps. Thigh brushed thigh, shoulder bumped shoulder. Dense blue eyes met hopeful brown, and it was all downhill from there.

The rest of the evening, and well into the morning, still sends a blush across Tomas’s cheeks and a shiver down his spine, as much as he wishes he could shrug it aside. He avoids it as much as he can, of course, but there are some lonely evenings when he cannot help but confront the thought.

Tomas hadn’t been shy of love when he was younger – he’d wanted to be a priest since he was a teenager, and so he made sure to go on as many wild adventures as he could when he was. His tattoos are all small stick-n-pokes from his friends back in Mexico, and he’s smoked enough to last anyone for a good lifetime. He slept with girls, and later, in college, before he dropped out, he slept with boys, too.

But he’d never fallen in love. Perhaps it was on purpose, to an extent. Tomas knew how much pain it would be to leave someone for God, and so he kept all his relationships to flings and one-night stands, and he’s never regretted it. There had never been anyone in his life who’d ever made him question what _more_ might feel like.

The night they’d met, Marcus had touched Tomas in ways he’d never imagined. Physically, of course – but the fire was in the conversation, the sparks in the banter between them. The way Marcus pulled him close after they’d had their fun, kissed Tomas’s eyelids and temples and corners of his lips and whispered such lovely words in his ear.

It made Tomas think that God might not be the only man worth living for after all.

Marcus was gone the next morning, and he didn’t come back to the bar for two weeks. Tomas didn’t question it – Marcus must have been just passing through, perhaps headed to meet family or friends in another state – and had just begun to ease back into normalcy when, lo and behold, Marcus showed up again, slick smile and all.

Tomas had tried to play it cool, giving Marcus only the frostiest of glances and setting down every drink he ordered with a slam. Marcus had still had him up against the wall before the evening was out without a moment of doubt or offer of apology, and in a way Tomas was almost glad of it. There was always a heady rush of adrenaline at the start of something new, at the uncertainty and mystery of it. Truthfully, he’d found Marcus’s disappearance all the more enticing.

Marcus was there when Tomas woke up the next morning, and the next. He stayed for three days of rousing, tumbling lovemaking, but also laughter. Marcus stayed at the apartment, coming and going every now and then, but always there by the time Tomas was home. They watched bad television till all hours of the morning, limbs tangled together on Tomas’s small couch, adding their own cynical commentary here and there to make each other smile. Tomas spent the weekend waking up to sandpaper fingertips and smile lines, and every morning his heart stirred a little quicker, jumped a little higher.

This time, when Marcus left, there was a note on his pillow – _I’ll be back_ , in scratchy, self-taught script. Tomas still had that note, folded neatly at the bottom of a box of other precious things – his grandmother’s rosary, his high school graduation tassel, a small photo of his nephew as a red-faced newborn.

So, Tomas had waited. He’d slept in most mornings, studied for his seminary acceptance test, gone to work late in the evenings. He’d poured drinks for people from everywhere and nowhere, and pulled apart wild drunks before they broke each other too badly, and through it all, the thought of seeing Marcus was a quiet buzz in the outer circle of his mind – a thrill that tiptoed through Tomas as he rolled over in an empty bed.

Two months later, when he opened the door of his apartment to see Marcus awaiting him on the couch, Tomas didn’t care how he’d gotten in, or where he’d been – he just kissed him as hard as he could.

 

 

 

Tomas manages to ease Marcus’s gray tank top away from the wound and over his head – Marcus doesn’t wince, but Tomas sees how his eyes have shuttered closed from pain, and he tries to be gentler still. Marcus’s chest is soaked in blood, dark and thick, and it’s hard to see exactly where it’s all coming from, but Tomas can already figure his current supplies won’t be enough.

He has a small first aid kit, but it’s nothing special. A wrap of bandages, a shelf of Band-Aids, cleaning ointment. He can use that to get rid of the excess blood, but the gash will most likely need stitches.

“What happened?” Tomas asks, and Marcus gives him a caveat glance.

“I have to know what hurt you if I’m going to treat it by myself, Marcus – were you shot, or stabbed?” tries Tomas once again.

Marcus raises his index and middle fingers to indicate the number two – he must have been stabbed, and Tomas is admittedly a little relieved. If it was a bullet, that would have meant a much more invasive treatment on his part, and Tomas is certain he won’t be able to handle performing minor surgery at twelve-thirty at night.

“I don’t have supplies for stitches – I have to go to the pharmacy down the street and buy them,” Tomas says as low and soothing as he can. Marcus grimaces then, shakes his head.

“Don’t you dare leave me,” he mutters. His voice is thick with pain, teeth gritted.

 _I could say the same to you,_ Tomas bites back, and presses his lips into a little rosebud of irritation to keep himself from speaking the words aloud. Now isn’t the time for such an argument.

“If you don’t want me to leave, then I have to call the paramedics. Either I go for a few minutes and pick up sterile needles and more bandages, or we go to the professionals.”

Tomas’s tone is harsh, harsher than it’s been in quite a while, and Marcus stares at him, each gaze as stubborn as the other. There’s a long, long moment of silence.

“Fine,” Marcus grunts, and it’s as bitter a word as dregs of bad coffee, but Tomas will take what he can get. He turns and bolts to the door without a glance back.

 

 

 

They’d been seeing each other every few weeks for almost eight months when Marcus had his first night terror in front of Tomas.

He’d been different that week anyway. When Tomas got home, bundled in multiple layers to block the blistering late November chill,  Marcus was there – only his usual carefree grin, his sly flirtations, were gone that evening. He was stretched out on the couch, the rusty television on an infomercial channel with the volume just barely louder than nothing. His eyes were clouded, unusually gray in their coloring.

Tomas rushed to his side, kneeled by the couch and took Marcus’s hand, “What’s wrong?” already on the tip of his tongue.

Marcus blinked and looked down at him – the usual blithe expression flickered across his face for just a moment, and he took Tomas by the back of his neck and kissed him long and slow. It was as though he was taking note of every detail of the way their lips fit together, of every inch of Tomas’s mouth, and locking it all somewhere deep inside him.

It made Tomas’s knees weak, his heart flit with anxiety.

“Are you all right?” he’d breathed into the kiss, and pulled away, pressed their foreheads together, noses brushing every now and then in the softest touch.

Marcus hadn’t answered, but the way he clung to Tomas that night with so much desperation led Tomas to think that Marcus was all but all right.

Two days later, he awoke to Marcus screaming. It was a guttural sound, a shriek clawing itself from the very depths of Marcus’s throat to tear the night apart with no shame or concern for its surroundings. Tomas bolted upright, blinking wide-eyed into the darkness – his first thought was that someone was dying, and when he realized who was crying out his heart dropped like rainfall.

“ _Marcus,_ ” he hissed. His voice was shaking, blood roaring in his ears. “Marcus, are you there? Can you hear me?”

No reply led Tomas to jump out of bed, run to the wall to flick on the room light. When he looked back at the bed he saw Marcus alive, but most certainly not well – Marcus lay twisted and curled into himself amid the sheets, panting hard and forehead shining with sweat.

He let out another choked sob and Tomas was on the mattress and shaking him, _hard_. He was close to slapping him when Marcus’s eyes clicked open, bloodshot and as dark as the night itself.

“Tomas,” Marcus whispered. His throat was hoarse, his nails biting into Tomas’s skin where hands clutched wrists, and in that moment he was as fragile as glass.

To this day, Tomas doesn’t remember who started crying first, but he can still feel the weight of his eyelids from the morning after. They’d spent the night pressed flush together, their limbs woven close, Tomas’s chin resting at the top of Marcus’s head. He’d felt every shake of Marcus’s shoulders, heard every gasp Marcus uttered the rest of the night, and pulled him a little closer with each one.

That was the first time Tomas had seen Marcus fall, and it changed everything for him. He started noticing the little things – the fact that there were always odd bruises here and there on Marcus’s body, or the scar on his shoulder that looked all-too-similar to a perfect bite mark – and questions that he’d never been more than mildly curious about began to burn a hole in his mind whenever they were together. Where did Marcus live? Where was he from? Did he have a home? What exactly was his job?

_Why have you hidden so much from me?_

Tomas knew Marcus would tell him when he was ready – but when would that be? How many more nights would he have to spend seeing the only person he’d ever even begun to fall in love with wracked with such fear, caused by secrets and lies and terrors Tomas couldn’t save him from?

That night was a rude awakening for Tomas, because now he could see clearly – Marcus wasn’t a carefree dream come true. He was human just like the rest. He could battle and bruise and collapse into nothing but pain, and Tomas wouldn’t just see it from afar and sympathize – he was right there, in the same agony. He was drowning in it. Marcus’s screams were his own, his fears shared, and it was a gut-wrenching thing.

Such was the danger of falling in love.

 

 

 

The pharmacy really is just down the street, and Tomas picks up everything he needs and then some. The cashier gives him an odd side-eye, but Tomas doesn’t have time to smile and shrug an “It’s been a crazy night!” in reply. After so long, someone is finally waiting for him to get back home.

To Tomas’s great relief, Marcus is still wide awake when Tomas gets back. He sets about hastily getting out the rubbing alcohol and curved needles – their silver points glitter in the lamplight and Tomas’s gut twists uncomfortably. He fills with sudden gratitude towards his abuelita, who insisted that he learn to sew as a young boy in Mexico.

“Bandages, needles, alcohol, floss – is there anything I forgot?” he asks Marcus, who’s glancing over every item on the coffee table near them. He’s still gripping his side, but the veins in his forearm are a little less taut, the hand clutching his wound a little gentler. Tomas hopes this is a good sign, and not a result of weakness from loss of blood.

“That’s fine,” Marcus manages, and Tomas breathes a sigh of relief.

“I’ll walk you through it, all right?” he continues without meeting Tomas’s gaze. He receives a raised eyebrow in response.

“You’ve done this before?” Tomas asks. He half-believes that in a situation like this, even Marcus could bear to answer such a question honestly for once.

He’s proven incorrect, of course – Marcus keeps his head down, gesturing once, roughly, to his wound.

Tomas could have screamed, but he simply turns away to begin sterilizing his tools.

 

 

 

They stood opposite each other in the kitchen. It was late, the sunset a dusty golden memory long enveloped in darkness. Tomas had the evening off from work – Heaven in a Bottle was closed for some small renovations. They were both panting, glaring at each other.

“I gave up _everything_ for you, everything I’ve been working for since I was a boy, and yet know nothing about you, still! It isn’t fair, Marcus!”

A sneer passed over Marcus’s lips as cold as Christmas morning.

“Am I expected to care about fairness? We’re not children, Tomas. I’ve told you dozens of times – I _cannot_ tell you about my life or why that is.”

“Are you in a gang? Are you some kind of undercover government agent? Well? Because I don’t see how any other job would give you a reason to ‘travel’ so much!”

“You’re so damn simple, you know that? You see the world as black and white, with no room in between for anything else! What, you think what you see around you is all there is? You think, just because I value my privacy, that I’m hiding some kind of fantastical secret? We’re not living in a fucking fairy tale – stop acting like a child.”

“I’m an adult, Marcus! I can take care of myself! You’re the one whose _treating_ me like a child!”

“Why can’t you just trust me? When have I ever given you incentive not to?”

Tomas snorted, spite leaking from his every move.

“Oh, because leaving me with nothing but a note every two weeks for months at a time is such a wonderful sign of loyalty? You’re right, Marcus – I’m being crazy, it’s my fault. There’s _absolutely_ no reason I might find it hard to believe in whatever this sick thing between us is!”

A thick silence fell then.

“What sick thing?” Marcus asked. His voice was painfully small.

Tomas almost broke. He almost gave in. Almost.

“Whatever you call this relationship. I can’t call you my boyfriend, or my partner – those titles belong to someone I see more than six times a year, to someone who…”

Marcus stepped closer, just a tentative inch.

“Who?” he breathed. Tomas felt the puff of air caress his cheeks, and his heart danced.

“Someone who loves me back,” he whispered, each word quieter than the last.

Marcus’s hands were tangled in Tomas’s hair before the words were finished, but he didn’t kiss him just yet. He pressed their foreheads together like Tomas had so many months ago, skimmed their cheeks and noses past each other, just _felt_ his presence.

It had become their custom, you see – to them, it was more intimate than intimate. Whenever Marcus was plagued by nightmares, or after Tomas had had a particularly long shift at his hated job, they’d lie oh-so-close in bed and just be.

Tomas’s hands curved against the bulk of Marcus’s shoulders, sloped downwards to make up the distance between them. He felt hot – from the warmth of the kitchen lights, from the adrenaline, the power of yelling at the top of his lungs, and from Marcus himself.

“I love you,” Marcus said. He didn’t murmur it, it wasn’t a gentle caress – it was a guttural call, a growl from the deepest parts of him, proclaimed clearly to the apartment empty of anyone but the two of them. He said it as though it had been ripped from him, as though someone had kept it in a barred cage for so long, only to throw the door wide open as soon as it was safe.

The kiss was much the same. Marcus teased Tomas’s lips apart with his tongue in the rawest, richest flicker of movement, bit at him with absolute authority. His arms curled around Tomas like waves sucking at the beach, pulling them impossibly close – he claimed Tomas as part of Marcus Keane himself.

Tomas didn’t have time to breathe, to think – in that moment, all he had ever been and would ever be belonged to the mysterious man who’d rolled into town and stolen his heart with just a glance and a kiss.

The next morning, Marcus was gone, and to Tomas’s gut-wrenching surprise, for the first time since they’d become something, there was no brief, loving, hastily scrawled note left in his place.

 

 

 

Tomas awakes to sunlight streaming in through the living room blinds. He shivers – he’d fallen asleep on the couch with only his jacket for a blanket. After the surgical debacle the night before, he hadn’t had the energy to set himself up properly.

 _You could have just shared the bed_ , he thinks unbidden, and then tosses the idea to the back of his mind. He’d decided against anything like that long ago.

He gets up slowly, squinting through the bright winter morning. Tomas stretches, works out the kinks in his shoulders and his neck, and pads quietly across the room to check on Marcus.

It’s a familiar sensation, the tickle of wonder that touches Tomas when he sees Marcus in his bed, curled into himself amid tangled sheets. He’d never stopped feeling it, even after Marcus left for good – the memories are just as sparkling and raw as they’ve always been.

Tomas crosses the distance between himself and the bed, sits by Marcus’s waist and strokes his forehead. It isn’t clammy, nor too warm – both of these are good signs. With any luck, Marcus doesn’t have an infection, and Tomas can find it in himself to relax just a little.

Marcus rolls over at the touch, but his eyes remain closed. That’s good – Tomas doesn’t want to fully wake him.

“I’m going for a run. I need to clear my head. I’ll be back in a little while, okay?” Tomas murmurs, pulling his fingers away. He would stay if Marcus needed him, of course he would – but he’s desperate for relief from this tension between them, gasping to put in his earbuds and push himself to the very limits of his physical strength. To feel something besides _Marcus_.

The sleeping figure seems to shrug, so Tomas grabs his running clothes, changes in the bathroom, and heads out into the bitter morning cold.

 

 

 

He’s halfway through his route when he realizes Marcus might not be there when Tomas gets back.

Again.

He forces himself to keep going, because God knows there’s a stutter in his heart telling him to turn back before he loses Marcus again – but Tomas is stronger now. He’s older, and all the wiser.

He’d spent six days inside his apartment after Marcus had left for good, alternating between sleeping and eating. He’d ignored all phone calls from his boss and his sister – he couldn’t bear to hear them scold him.

Tomas had read about how losing your loved one felt like a hole in your chest, heard friends talk about how much their breakups hurt, and he’d tried to be as sympathetic as possible. The truth was, of course, that he didn’t really understand – all his separations had been amicable. He’d slept with many people who he considered to be his best friends now, and there’d been no bad blood between them in any stage of their relationship, even during the break-ups. Besides, if it was just sex or the romance that these lovelorn people craved, there would always be someone willing, if you looked hard enough.

Tomas didn’t miss the romance – he missed _Marcus Keane_. He missed the way their hands fit together, the way Marcus’s eyes lit up when he laughed. He missed their inside jokes, missed watching their favorite movies together late at night, entwined on the couch under dozens of blankets when the heater was acting up again.

Marcus’s absence was so terribly _loud_ – it was the only way Tomas could think to describe it. A painful buzz spiraling in the center of Tomas’s skull, constantly beating against his other thoughts and shoving them to the side so the only thing Tomas could focus on was the bitter loneliness.

He’d supposed, curled up in his blankets, sunlight peeking through closed curtains, that that was something unique to Marcus alone. The same noise had beat against the inside of Tomas’s head after their first night together too, but it had meant so much more then, been the possibility of so much more – now it was just an infinite reminder of all that had been lost.

He’d torn himself apart looking for an answer as to why Marcus had left him, and when he found nothing, Tomas gave up on any hope at all.

Or, at least, he would have, if Olivia hadn’t broken down his door with several brutal kicks and forced him to pull himself together.

She’d cursed him out in Spanish, done all but slap him across the face. Even when Tomas tried to explain his broken heart, she’d refused to listen.

“No excuses this time, Tomas!” Olivia had snapped, “I was worried sick! You think you can abandon your friends, your family, your whole life, just because of some stupid boy? This is because you never let yourself fall for anyone properly before! You have no idea how to handle something like this, idiot – but let me tell you, this isn’t the way!”

She made him text everyone he knew and apologize for his disappearance, to let them know he was okay. Then, she forced him in the shower while she practically made him a personal buffet, still yelling through the walls loud enough for him to pick up on, and forced him to eat seconds of every dish.

With a little groveling, Tomas got his job back. His friends started coming over to check on him, and organized regular group outings just to make sure he was getting out of the house.

The sun stopped being so bitterly bright. The memories clinging to every brick of the city began to ease their hold. The pain never left, but it turned into something familiar, and then, eventually, into the first pink, pulsing scar on his heart.

 

 

 

“Marcus?” Tomas calls, hating the flicker of anxiety in his voice. He pushes open the door too forcefully – it hits the left hallway wall with a crack and Tomas makes a mental note not to tell his landlord about it.

“Are you still here?” he tries again. He steps into the living room, taking out one earbud, then the other. He’s still panting from his run – he wants to take a shower, to get out of these clinging clothes, but he has to make sure of this first.

“Whose mug is this?” a voice framed in a familiar accent says from behind Tomas, and he can’t help the weight lifting from his chest in a fevered rush of relief.

Tomas turns quickly and is only a little outraged to see Marcus up and walking about. The bruise over his left eye and along his jaw have settled on a deep mauve, and the way he walks is clearly trying to conceal a limp. Tomas would’ve started yelling about proper bed rest if his eyes hadn’t fallen onto the yellow coffee cup in Marcus’s hand.

Tomas met Jessica at a coffee shop in the second-nicest part of town. She was ridiculously pretty – black hair like silk that trailed the length of her back, breathtakingly soft skin, and brown eyes as wide and dark as the night sky. She’d smiled at him from a few tables away, and Tomas had felt the butterflies in his stomach stir in a way they hadn’t for a very long time.

They’d only been together for a month and a half, but her kisses tasted like vanilla and she made him laugh. With Jessica, Tomas wondered if perhaps life wouldn’t be so lonely after all.

Last night, when Marcus showed up, Tomas was getting home from a date. He’d asked Jessica if she was serious about him, and she’d thrown the question back at him. When he’d leaned across the table to kiss her in reply, Tomas had even half-successfully vanquishing the image of Marcus that had popped up in his mind.

“Tomas?” asks Marcus again. Tomas’s eyes flick to meet his, and they are darker than he’s ever seen them in broad daylight. “I’m only asking. I don’t care who they are, I was just curious. I hadn’t seen it before, so I thought…”

Marcus trails off, lets a smile that is all but mournful touch his lips.

“Never mind,” he finishes. His gaze drops to the floor.

“Her name is Jessica,” Tomas blurts. He might’ve sworn he saw Marcus flinch, and yet, for some reason, he keeps going. “She’s my girlfriend. I’ve been seeing her for almost two months. She brought that over because she only drinks tea, and she says all my cups taste like coffee.”

Marcus turns to leave. Tomas holds him there with more words, spilling unbidden from between his lips.

“She’s going back to school to be an interior decorator. We met at a coffee shop. Our first date was to the movies, and we both agree that the one we went to was the worst either of us have ever seen. She loves the colors yellow and blue. She’s terrible with technology. She—”

“Would you _shut up_ about your damn girlfriend?” Marcus snaps, whirling where he stands to face Tomas. His face is practically flushed and a vein pops in his neck – his hands ball into fists at his sides.

“You have to hear this, Marcus! You have to hear this so the next time you’re almost dead you don’t come to me for help!”

Tomas is yelling – he hasn’t yelled for the whole year Marcus has been gone, but suddenly it feels like every single emotion he felt since he’d been abandoned, every infinitesimal speck of rage and pain and grief that he still held in his heart, was suddenly loose and hungry to make itself known.

“ _You_ left _me_. You don’t get to drop in when you want. I don’t care if you’ve been stabbed or shot or beat to a pulp – I won’t go through what I went through again, not for you!”

Marcus snorts. He raises a hand to shield his eyes, tilts his chin to the heavens in frustration.

“I should’ve known this would happen if I came back here,” he hisses. Tomas feels like hitting him, and he would’ve if the bruises didn’t still look so fresh.

“I loved you, you bastard. I spent days locked in this apartment unable to move or think or practically breathe because I knew that you were gone for good. Do you know how much it’s taken for me to get to this place? It’s taken the whole year, Marcus – I haven’t caught a break since you left. I almost lost every friend I have. My sister had me on her own personal suicide watch for three months! I had to beg for my stupid job back, a job I only kept in the first place because you made me give up becoming a priest!”

“Don’t you dare turn that on me, Tomas – I told you not to, and you still decided to abandon it. It was always your choice, and you—”

“ _WHY DID YOU FUCKING LEAVE?_ ”

Tomas feels lightheaded all of a sudden. He realizes it’s because he’s spent all his breath, and sucks in a gasp, stepping back once. His palms are screaming – he’s clenching his hands so tightly that his nails pry blood from his skin.

Marcus is staring at him. Tomas stares back, fighting the urge to lower his gaze. For once, he doesn’t want to keep the peace, doesn’t want to back down anymore.

“You told me you….and I believed you like a fool. You were the first person to teach me what love could be, and you broke me in half.”

It spills from his lips like rainfall, or sudden tears.

“You didn’t even care enough to say goodbye.”

The room is too quiet now. Neither of them make a move towards each other, nor away.

“I never lied to you, Tomas,” breaks that silence all of a sudden.

“It’s why I never told you about myself, about my history or my job. I knew I would either be lying to you, or putting you in unimaginable danger, so I chose neither.”

Marcus is the one to look away today.

“You said that I ruined your life, but you can’t imagine what knowledge of me and what I do could’ve done to you. You suffered, and believe me, I felt the exact same pain – but you had friends. You had your sister, and your job, and a real home. Just _knowing_ what’s out there would destroy it all, Tomas – they’d take everything from you, and then, when you thought there was nothing left, they’d take the nothing too. They’d eat you alive, and I couldn’t bring myself to put that on you, of all people.”

Tomas feels a tickle of fear down his spine, and he’s surprised at himself. Marcus had never spoken like this, never even hinted that his job was particularly dangerous at all – it’s a chilling thought, one he almost can’t bring himself to believe, but there’s something in Marcus’s eyes all of a sudden – raw honesty, perhaps. This is the first time Tomas has ever seen it.

“You don’t know that,” he manages somehow. It tastes thick and false on his tongue.

Marcus lets out a rough sigh, one corner of his lip twisting into a pained smile.

“Trust me, Tomas – I know it. I’ve seen it a dozen times. I find someone, I trust them, maybe even love them, and then my past comes for them. It’s just how it works.”

Tomas sees a flicker on their horizon just then – the barest breath of understanding.

“You blame yourself for, well, whatever you’re talking about, don’t you?” he asks, and through the lingering anger he tries to even his words, to make them gentle.

Marcus’s voice is scathing as he replies, “Is it blame when you know for certain how you could have prevented it? When you and only you were the catalyst for their injury? Believe me, there was plenty of that to go around. I don’t blame myself, Tomas – I _know_ that it’s my fault.”

Tomas takes a deep breath. Every cell in his body is screaming Jessica’s name, reminding him that doing this will only lead to more unimaginable pain. Marcus Keane is a heartbreaker, a secretive bastard, and a complete mystery – there’s no point in trying to save him, because even now, who knows what he’s even running from?

And yet, Tomas can’t bring himself to stop the words he knows he has to say, and that he truly believes, for Marcus’s sake, because no matter how ugly, how beaten, or how dire their relationship had been and surely would be – Tomas will always choose it over anything else.

“I am not your responsibility,” he says, clear and loud and from the very center of his chest. “That’s never been our relationship. I’m not your ward, not someone you need to look after. Whatever happens to me is _my fault,_ you understand? I’ll wholeheartedly accept the consequences of my actions, and you will accept that in turn.”

Tomas walks forward slowly, a step every few sentences, and he ends up just a few inches from Marcus, who stares down at him with an impossible expression on his face.

“I’m choosing you right now, Marcus. I’m choosing to trust you, despite all your mystery and your past. I’m choosing to learn your secrets with a bare heart and mind, no matter what comes next, because be it pain or death or losing everything I hold dear – as long as I have you, I can survive it all.”

 

 

 

They start off slow. Marcus is still suffering from a moderate-to-severe stab wound, and what seems to be a sprained ankle, so he needed a place to stay anyway – he’s already at Tomas’s place, so why not?

He still refuses to tell Tomas anything for the moment, but something fundamental has changed in the way he says no – now he replies with a “Not yet,” or, “I need time,” and Tomas is willing to accept that. It’s better than nothing, after all.

They don’t touch at first. Tomas doesn’t want to hurt Marcus, and he doesn’t want to rush into anything – the wounds on his heart still feel as fresh as the morning Marcus left whenever they settle a little too close to one another. Besides, he feels as though he owes it to Jessica to at least pretend to be single for a little while – she didn’t take kindly to being dumped for the only ex who’d ever broken Tomas’s heart, something she’d made perfectly clear over the phone.

The first purposeful attempt at intimacy is two weeks after they came to their agreement. It’s become easier, living with each other – they’ve fallen into some of their better old rhythms. Tomas is getting used to making room for another on the couch, and pouring two cups of coffee in the morning again (though Jessica’s mug is nowhere to be seen – he’d mysteriously found it in pieces on the kitchen floor six days ago).

They’re sitting on the couch. Marcus is chuckling at some terrible sitcom, and Tomas is reading a thick history book. He’s thinking about going back to school – he never got his bachelor’s, wanting to be a priest and all, but, regardless of that dream being somewhat impossible now, he still intends do something with himself. Being a bartender is no great love of his, and it will give him great satisfaction to storm out some day that’s hopefully closer than it’s ever been before.

Tomas turns the page and sets his hand down on the cushion beside him – it brushes against Marcus's fingers, and the world pauses on its axis for just a moment.

Neither of them look up. They daren’t breathe, for fear of sending it all tumbling down.

Tomas thought that the first time they touched like lovers again would be weeks from now, when Marcus was better. That one night they’d meet each other’s eyes and simply decide to tear their clothes off then and there, and it would be rough and hungry and wonderful all at once. He was preparing himself for it, was ready to catch whatever Marcus threw his way.

Except this, perhaps. Tomas had never known Marcus to be the partner who was always seeking some form of physical contact – of course they snuggled now and then, and shared casual kisses throughout the day, but for the most part they stuck to their own space.

Now, Marcus gently, achingly gently, envelopes Tomas’s hand in his. His touch is so soft – it sends a shiver up Tomas’s arm.

Tomas’s hand is flat against the cushion, Marcus’s on top of his. He traces gentle patterns down Tomas’s fingers, taps each of his knuckles – it feels so natural that Tomas almost wonders if Marcus is doing it without realizing.

When he looks over at last, however, Marcus is watching him with a question mark in his eyes.

Tomas nods just slightly, and turns back to his book.

They both get a little bolder after that. Marcus starts initiating more in the physical, and Tomas, in the conversational. Little by little, they begin to speak besides when it’s only necessary – they make little comments about the weather, or read excerpts from articles online, and these in turn spark actual conversations. They’re casual, and don’t delve deeper than need be, but it’s leading up to something – Tomas can feel it.

The first time they kiss is after Marcus tells Tomas about his parents. It’s a horrible story – Marcus can’t raise his head as he speaks, his voice just barely a whisper, and Tomas listens with bated breath.

He can’t help it. He’s never liked seeing Marcus in such a fragile state, and he just wants to remind Marcus that he’s loved and so, so worthy of being alive just then.

It’s chaste, and quick, and it doesn’t go anywhere that night, but it banishes the clouds from Marcus’s eyes, if only for a moment.

He leaves a month and three weeks after he’d arrived, but Tomas is ready for it, and to Marcus’s credit, he does tell Tomas his plans this time.

“I travel for my job, you see,” he tells him two nights before his departure. “I help people, I do, but I doubt you’d believe me how if I told you right now.”

“Are you planning on coming back this time uninjured?” Tomas asks. He’s angry, of course, but mostly he just wants to make sure Marcus isn’t going to do anything incredibly stupid and burn more images of his wounded self into Tomas’s nightmares.

Marcus grins then, and it practically sparkles.

“I’ll come back, at the very least,” he replies, “that’s a promise, love.”

On the note, Marcus writes just a few words of love as he always had before – however this time, just underneath, is the name of a state (Mississippi) and a phone number (only to call if absolutely necessary – this is underlined twice).

And as Tomas is soon to find out, Marcus Keane always makes good on his promises.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you enjoyed! I have literally no idea what to say here besides idk a kudos or kind comment would be so very much appreciated?? Anyway - thank you for reading!


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